she's not afraid
by kissmegoodbye
Summary: how come she's so afraid of falling in love? [au]


_song credit - she's not afraid [one direction]_

* * *

_she walks in and the room just lights up, but she don't want anyone to know that i'm the only one who gets to take her home.  
_I see her before she sees me.  
She breezes into the room like a force of nature and ignores me for the first hour. She spends most of time talking to Grantaire and Joly, laughing loudly at their non-funny jokes and helping herself to their drinks  
I try not to stare at her, I try to make it look like I haven't even noticed her. That's the way we've been playing it since that first night. After all this time I've becoming an expert at acting oblivious to her existence when the others are around. Eventually she comes over and sits down between Marius and I.  
'What are you boys talking about? Still plotting to overthrown the government?'  
'Well...' Marius begins before he's abruptly cut off.  
'Pontmercy!' Courfeyrac calls from the other side of the room. 'Come here, we need you to help us settle something.'  
Marius sighs before he wanders over to where Courfeyrac and Combeferre appear to be having some kind of heated debate.  
'So,' she says, glancing quickly round the room, 'what do you say we get out of here?'  
'We're not really done with the meeting.'  
'Oh come on Enjolras, the meeting is long over and you know it.'  
I know she's right.  
'I'm going to leave now,' she says, leaning towards me. It takes everything I have not to just reach over and kiss her in front of everyone. 'And then you're going to leave in 5 minutes. I'll wait in the alley.'  
She stands up. 'Don't keep me waiting Apollo.'  
I meet her in the alley 4 minutes and 58 seconds later. Eponine doesn't like to be kept waiting.

_she's not afraid of all the attention, she's not afraid of running wild - how come she's so afraid of falling in love?_  
'Come on Apollo.'  
She grabs my hands in a vain attempt to pull me up onto the dance floor.  
'I'm fine here,' I say, trying to pull away from her grip.  
She lets go of my hands. 'You're actually not going to dance with me?'  
'You don't need me to dance with you.'  
She stands back with her hands on her hips. 'Do I detect a tone of jealousy in that remark?'  
I was jealous, of course I was jealous. She'd begged me to take her dancing, insisted we drove to a club on the other side of town so no-one would see us and then spent the whole night draped over every guy who had paid her any kind of attention. But that's just what she did, I'd come to expect nothing less.  
'I'm not jealous.'  
She leans over and kisses me hard. 'Don't be a dick Enjolras, I'm just having fun.' She grabs my hands again and this time I don't resist her attempts to pull me up. 'And besides,' she whispers in my ear, 'none of them will be fucking me later will they?'  
Before I can say anything back she turns around and drags me onto the crowded dance floor, pulling me through the masses until she finds a space she deems acceptable.  
I put my hands on her hips and for a brief moment she lets them rest there. The other people piled onto the dance floor continue to move round us, bumping into us as they attempt to dance. We don't move. She looks at me and for a second I feel like this could be the breakthrough, but then she pulls away - like she always does.  
She grabs my hands and yanks them from her hips.  
'Come on Enjolras, this isn't a fucking tea dance.'  
She laughs that infectious laugh of hers before thrusting her crotch into mine. A couple of people around us look over, she thrives on the attention. She feels their eyes on her and knows its time to restart the show. She smirks as she leans over, dragging her tongue along my jaw.  
'Take me home and fuck me.'

_'cause every time I tell her how I feel she says it's not real._  
I tried to tell her that I loved her once.I don't know what time it was, maybe 3 or 4 in the morning, but I do know that it was raining.  
She was laying on her stomach as I traced circles on her bare back.  
'You're beautiful you know,' I said.  
'You don't need to try and woo me Enjolras,' she turned her head to the side and closed her eyes. 'I'm already in your bed, you're a step behind.'  
'Eponine, I...'  
She reached up and put her hand over my mouth, cutting me off mid-sentence. 'Don't say it. You don't really mean it, so don't say it.'  
She removed her hand from my mouth and pushing her body into mine. Her eyes were still closed.  
'I do mean it.'  
'No you don't. Just leave it, just go to sleep and forget about it.'  
She didn't mention it in the morning.

_she loves the way we kiss in the dark. how come she's so afraid of falling in love?_  
She crawls up the bed and turns the light off. As soon as darkness fills the room she sits up on her knees and pulls her dress over her head.  
She never undressed with the lights on.  
'What are you waiting for?'  
When I climb up the bed to meet her she kisses me so hard our teeth bash together; it's a forceful mess of teeth and tongue and lips. When I break contact to take my shirt off she moans. It's barely over my head before she grabs me and forces my mouth back to hers.  
'Don't ever stop kissing me.'

_what about all the things we say, talking on the phone so late? i can't let her get away from me._  
'Do you hate me?'  
'Of course I don't hate you, I could never hate you.'  
'You deserve someone so much better than me Enjolras.'  
'I don't want anyone else.'  
'Well then that's your own look out, but I'm telling you now that you do deserve someone better, you're worthy of someone better.'  
'There's no one better than you.'  
'I can't give you what you want.'  
'I want you Eponine, I only want you.'  
She sighs.  
'You deserve so much better than me.'

_when I say that i can't do it no more; she's back at my door..._  
Two days later she's sitting on my kitchen counter, picking at her nail polish and drinking from a beer she'd helped herself to.  
'You seem tense,' she says, grabbing my arm and pulling my body towards hers.  
She sets the beer down on the counter and runs both her hands through my hair.  
'Definitely tense,' she whispers before crashing her mouth into mine, her hands still twisted in my hair. As the kiss deepens she pulls her legs up round my waist.  
She pulls back from the kiss suddenly, leaving us both gasping for air, and picks her beer back up.  
'You need to be less tense Apollo,' she says.  
She downs what was left of the beer and slams the empty bottle down, unwinding her legs from my body at the same time.  
'I gotta go.'  
'You only just got here.'  
She jumps off the counter. 'Call it a flying visit.'  
'Are you coming back later?'  
'I don't know.'  
'What about tomorrow?'  
'Maybe,' she shrugs, 'I don't know. I'll call you.'  
She's just about to walk out of the kitchen when I finally snap.  
'I can't do this anymore Eponine.'  
She rolls her eyes. 'Oh don't start this now Enjolras, I've got places to be.'  
'And what, I'm just supposed to sit around and wait for you to decide to show up again?'  
'I always come back don't I? I don't see what your fucking problem is.'  
'I don't want you to go, that's what my problem is. I want you to be here all the time.'  
She grabs her bag from the kitchen table. 'Never going to happen Enjolras. You knew what this was from the start; I told you I don't do relationships.'  
'What is it you're so afraid of?'  
'I'm not having this conversation with you.'  
She throws her bag over the shoulder and heads for the door.  
'Well the maybe you shouldn't bother coming back.'  
She doesn't even bother replying. She just leaves.  
I don't see her for almost a week. So many times I almost call her, almost tell her that if I can only be with her on her terms then so be it. But I know that's a lie - I could never be with her and not want more.  
She reappears 6 days later at 3am. As soon as the phone rings I know it's her.  
'I'm sorry.'  
'I know.'  
'I didn't mean it.'  
'I know.'  
She doesn't even make any attempt to explain herself, she knows she doesn't have too. She knows I'll always forgive her; she knows I love her too much.


End file.
